Which Airlines Are Most Likely To Lose or Damage Luggage?
Among the many frustrations of air travel is ending up at your destination only to find that your luggage has been lost or damaged.
Well, now the lifestyle website Stacker has decided to rank the top, or, uh, bottom 10 airlines who are most likely to wreak havoc with your bags.
Here is what Stacker came up with, using data from the 2021 Air Travel Consumer Report. The data includes mishandled baggage totals per 1,000 items from October 2021, along with total bags handled. All of the numbers related to mishandled bags were self-reported by travelers.
10: Skywest Airlines
Number of mishandled bags per thousand: 4.51
11,191 bags lost or damaged out of 2,481,721 total bags handled
9: Southwest Airlines
Number of mishandled bags per thousand: 4.62
41,245 bags lost or damaged out of 8,917,967 total bags handled
8: PSA Airlines
Number of mishandled bags per thousand: 4.78
5,403 bags lost or damaged out of 1,130,847 total bags handled
7: Endeavor Air
Number of mishandled bags per thousand: 4.82
4,860 bags lost or damaged out of 1,007,850 total bags handled
6: Republic Airways
Number of mishandled bags per thousand: 5.40
4,726 bags lost or damaged out of 874,948 total bags handled
5: Mesa Airlines
Number of mishandled bags per thousand: 5.93
3,676 bags lost or damaged out of 619,525 total bags handled
4: Delta Air Lines
Number of mishandled bags per thousand: 5.95
33,967 bags lost or damaged out of 5,705,942 total bags handled
3: Alaska Airlines
Number of mishandled bags per thousand: 6.07
8,682 bags lost or damaged out of 1,430,197 total bags handled
2: Envoy Air
Number of mishandled bags per thousand: 7.71
6,401 bags lost or damaged out of 829,856 total bags handled
1: American Airlines
Number of mishandled bags per thousand: 7.94
43,035 bags lost or damaged out of 5,417,841 total bags handled
As you can see, 70 percent of the list is comprised of smaller, regional airlines. But even for the big carriers, with the amount of daily volume they produce, the numbers are encouraging.
Even for American, the odds of having a lost or damaged bag is less than one percent.